Sixteen defendants from the Southern Tier, led from a Binghamton federal courthouse the afternoon of Nov. 15, stood accused of procuring the chemical pseudoephedrine for the purpose of making methamphetamine.

Law enforcement officials had spent many months building the federal case, but the investigation didn't end on the courthouse steps. Within two hours that same day, state police converged on two residences in the Whitney Point area, where they found evidence of alleged meth labs and arrested four more people on state-level charges.

While Southern Tier communities and the nation continue to grapple with the opioid epidemic, police are also keeping a close watch on meth, a synthetic stimulant that has been on the radar of the local law enforcement officials since the late 1980s and has experienced cyclical spikes over the years. Recently, meth production has come under increased scrutiny by authorities in the region.

Investigator Tim Schmidt of the Tioga County Sheriff's Office said meth-makers tend to cook small batches for themselves or to sell and often employ networks of people to procure Sudafed (pseudoephedrine) — as much as possible before merchants cut them off — in exchange for a kickback of meth as payment.

"Some people are going to meth, because to them, the theory is there's less of a chance of overdosing and dying than with opioids, but there's no quality control with any of these illicit drugs," Schmidt said. "We attack them both the same way."

Unlike other high-profile drugs such as heroin, which is usually distributed in smaller communities from large cities such as New York, meth can be made almost anywhere by drug dealers or addicts — in a house or even a vehicle — using a container the size of a liter soda bottle.

The form of meth most commonly found by local police is made using the "one-pot" method. There is also a more-potent variety, crystal meth, which police say is frequently trafficked into parts of the country and state from Arizona-based Mexican drug labs.

Within the past year, law enforcement agencies began to notice more crystal meth moving into the Southern Tier, Schmidt said. Sheriff's deputies discovered it during traffic stops or in the midst of other drug investigations.

That influx, which police eventually traced to Arizona, didn't seem to slow the demand for "one-pot" meth in the area, according to police.

"The meth problem is still here," said Lt. Jeffrey Dorward of the New York State Police Community Narcotics Enforcement Team, a specialized unit that targets drug trafficking. "You can go after the people making it, or you can get the people buying the (Sudafed) pills and make an example. We try different ways of addressing the problem."

Making meth

Police say the process used to make meth is relatively simple — but volatile.

The "one pot" style of cooking meth is cheap, the equipment is easily disposable, and makers can turn out a batch in about three hours, police say.

These meth-makers combine anhydrous ammonia, pseudoephedrine tablets, water and a reactive metal in a container, such as a liter-sized soda bottle. A chemical reaction leaves behind the addictive crystalline powder that users smoke, snort or ingest.

Previous methods of meth cooking involved much more elaborate setups, such as containers simmering over open flame.

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One aspect that sets meth apart from drugs such as heroin is that meth addicts and cooks tend to stay in tighter-knit circles, said Capt. Kathleen Newcomb of the Broome County Sheriff's Office. Heroin tends to be more widely distributed.

Oddly enough, she said, the situation seemed reversed years ago. Now, police encounter many familiar names in the course of local meth investigations, and rooting them out requires an array of tactics.

In 2006, lawmakers tightened regulations on limiting sales of pseudoephedrine in response to combating meth production. But meth cooks still find ways to procure it.

Members of the Contaminated Crime Scene Emergency Response Team search a McGowan Road residence in Whitney Point during a meth investigation.(Photo: Contributed Photo)

Police point to "smurfing," a practice in which people purchase Sudafed pills from pharmacies — sometimes using fake IDs — and hand them over to meth-makers until they're cut off from further sales.

"Addicts will most often go for whatever is cheapest and more readily available," Newcomb said. "Our primary focus is on heroin and the opioid epidemic, we have to bring that under control, but that doesn't mean we're not focusing on other drugs."

According to New York State Police records for the seven-county Troop C, there were 23 meth labs in Broome County in 2017. In Tioga County, there were 11 registered meth labs. Tompkins County had nine and Delaware County had just two. State police listed none in Otsego.

Cortland County had 29 meth labs listed by state police and Chenango County had 25.

'Hailstorm' of busts

Less than a month before the 16 defendants accused of illegally procuring pseudoephedrine appeared in Binghamton's federal courthouse to answer grand jury indictments, police had carried out another sweep of meth-related arrests.

On Sept. 20, search warrants in Broome and Tioga counties led to 10 arrests and the climax of "Operation Hailstorm," an investigation into crystal meth being trafficked from Arizona to New York state. That investigation also had ties to another large-scale drug takedown, which involved meth and other drugs, two years earlier in Endicott.

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Following Wednesday's drug raids, defendants are brought out of federal court in Binghamton on September 20, 2017.(Photo: Patrick Oehler/Staff Photo)

Corning police made arrests Sept. 27 after officers found a working meth lab in a detached garage on East Fifth Street. A week before that, in Elmira, firefighters extinguished a fire on West Water Street that was traced to a meth lab explosion.

Last year, authorities rounded up 17 defendants in connection with a massive Southern Tier methamphetamine manufacturing and distribution ring. Between June 2012, and May 4, 2016, the conspirators distributed large amounts of meth in parts of Schuyler, Chemung, and Steuben counties.

The leader of the group, Scott Kennedy of Beaver Dams, was sentenced in November to nearly 20 years in federal prison.

Law enforcement officials aren't ready to say meth has surged in the area this past year, since most of the recent busts have been the result of long-term investigations that spanned at least a year before charges were filed.

And although major busts tend to leave gaps in the local drug market, according to police, it's often short-lived.